Ramba Samba Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Material
• Goal of the Game
• Setup
• Gameplay
• Short Rule
• End of the Game
• Variants for Younger Children
  • Variant 1
  • Variant 2
• Variants for Experts

Material

• 1 game board
• 21 "costume" wooden pieces (the caterpillar's body parts)
• 5 green wooden pieces
• 1 costume sack
• 21 "hanger" wooden pieces

Goal of the Game

You assemble Ramba's carnival costume piece by piece from the colourful wooden parts, from the tail to the head. Whoever finds the right part in the sack may put it on the caterpillar and receives a hanger for it. Once you have built Ramba together, the player with the most hangers is the winner.

Setup

Before you play RAMBA SAMBA for the first time, you should take a close look at the caterpillar on the game board. It is best to take all the wooden pieces and puzzle them together from the tail to the head. Then you will see where each wooden piece belongs and which pieces do not belong. Then you can start playing for real:

• Place the costume sack filled with all the wooden pieces in the middle of the table, and place the game board next to it.
• Place the 21 hangers in the space provided for them on the game board ("wardrobe").

Gameplay

One of you calls out "Ramba Samba!". Then all of you reach into the costume sack at the same time with one hand and try to find the tail piece. You may not look into the costume sack.

If you believe you have found the tail piece, pull it out of the sack, call out "Stop!" loudly, and show it to the other players. If you have indeed found it, place it in the correct spot on the game board and take a hanger as your reward.

If, however, you have drawn a different piece, leave it lying in front of you. Only the other players may now continue searching in the costume sack.

Take care not to draw a green wooden piece, because it fits nowhere.

It can happen that your fellow players also draw wrong pieces and therefore may no longer reach into the sack. As soon as only one player has a hand in the costume sack, all of you may reach in again. Continue playing in this way until one of you has found the tail piece and placed it on the game board.

Afterwards, all the wrongly drawn pieces go back into the sack. Now turn the sack until each player has a new opening in front of them. Then the next round begins.

Now you look for the piece that fits before the tail piece. Once you have found it, you look for the next matching piece in the following round, and so on.

Short Rule

Either ...

• ... you draw the correct wooden piece ...
• ... and place it on the game board.
• ... and receive a hanger as a reward.
• ... then a new round begins.

Or ...

• ... you draw a wrong wooden piece ...
• ... and leave it lying in front of you.
• ... then the other players keep searching until one of them finds the correct wooden piece.
• ... then a new round begins.

End of the Game

The game ends when Ramba is fully dressed. The player who has the most hangers in front of them becomes Ramba's best friend and wins the game. If several players have collected the most hangers, they win together.

Variants for Younger Children

Variant 1

Use the sack only as a base on which you spread out the caterpillar pieces. Take the green, unsuitable pieces out of the game.

The course of play changes as follows: you do not play at the same time but take turns. On your turn, you choose one of the caterpillar pieces lying open. If it fits the sought-after spot on the caterpillar, you receive a hanger. If the piece does not fit, your left-hand neighbour may try it, and so on. As soon as you have placed the correct piece, the left-hand neighbour of the player who found it begins the search for the next piece. The player with the most hangers wins.

Variant 2

The caterpillar is first half-assembled on the board (the first 10 wooden pieces are placed on the game board). The wooden pieces of the other half of the caterpillar go into the sack. Now you search for the missing pieces and assemble the caterpillar piece by piece, as explained in the main rules.

Variants for Experts

• In later games, you can also assemble Ramba the other way round, from the head to the tail.
• Once you have become very good caterpillar puzzlers, you can make it even more demanding. Then place the game board back in the box and try to assemble Ramba from back to front without the guidance of the board. Place the tail piece as the very first piece before the game begins.
• You can also play RAMBA SAMBA so that everyone who draws a green wooden piece must put one hanger that has already been collected back into the wardrobe on the game board.
• Of course, it is also possible to play RAMBA SAMBA in teams of two. One team first searches for the tail piece, and the other team searches for the head piece. Afterwards, the teams build the caterpillar from both directions. The team with the most hangers wins.